Ritual
by Eyes Behind the Mask
Summary: "In order to appease the gods, the Druid priests held fire rituals. Prisoners of war, criminals, the insane, animals... were... burned alive in baskets. By observing the way they died, the Druids believed they could see omens of the future. Two thousand years later, we've come no further. Samhain isn't evil spirits. It isn't goblins, ghosts or witches. It's the unconscious mind..."


"You're serious about this, aren't you."

"Yes."

"I mean you really never want him to get out."

"No, never ever. Never."

- Marion Chambers and Sam Loomis, Halloween (1978)

* * *

'Here, take it! Take it... ' Loomis hissed, shoving the gun towards Laurie. She shakily reached for it, the pistol looking eerily out of place in her small hands.

He was at the door to the oxygen tank storage room now, and while it held him at bay for the moment Loomis knew that the evil would stop at nothing to reach the girl who sat in the corner of the room. They both watched in horrid fascination as the glass shattered into sharp dagger-like shards and the door splintered away under his assault.

Stepping between his patient and the object of his obsession, Loomis trained his gun onto the maniac, only to feel the sharp slice of the scalpel before he could get a single shot off. Aching hollowly, he tried to stand his ground but failed and crumpled to the ground like a puppet with it's strings cut.

Loomis could hear Laurie squeaking in fear as the evil approached almost silently, the realization that he'd left her alone again stinging almost if not as much as his wound. While he'd insisted that it hadn't been his fault the monster had escaped, that he wasn't to blame, that if they'd only heeded his words... Now, he realized just why those accusations had pierced so deeply. It had been his patient, his cross to bear, and he was indeed responsible.

He heard her call the monster's name, and was struggling to rise to his feet when he heard two shots echoing almost deafeningly off the walls. To his amazement he saw that she'd aimed true, and blood was welling up and spilling over in tears that were almost a mockery issuing from within those emotionless sockets. Evil might not die, but it had been effectively blinded for the moment, he realized as he began to swing the scalpel haphazardly.

Loomis managed to scramble to his feet then, intent on somehow helping the girl if only by distracting the evil for a moment or two. He was getting dangerously close to her, swinging that scalpel wildly and while he had not yet made a connection it was inevitable if Loomis didn't do something. Then his own words from earlier that evening came rushing back as blood began to seep through his shirt.

In order to appease the gods...

...burned alive...

...fire rituals.

How could he have not seen it sooner? The only way to truly scour evil, to rout the demon was through fire. Fire was all consuming, and even evil could not withstand towering flames and purifying smoke. He fingered the lighter in his pocket, eyes shifting to the oxygen tanks only a few feet away. Limping forward, he grabbed for the valve, and the hissing of the trapped gas suddenly drowned out Laurie's small fearful cries. Not only that, the sound had also served to draw the evil's attention away, and he began to shamble towards Loomis, still swinging wildly, holding a hand to those wet, red eyes.

And then the girl was up, taking his cue and also opening the valves on a tank across the room, further disorienting the blinded maniac, and setting him back in her direction. It was then that the second part of the equation began to dawn on him crushingly. What was a ritual without a sacrifice? He'd said it himself, the Druidic rituals that culminated in the blackening flesh of a still living sacrifice cast into the flames.

While he now knew what he had to do, he would be damned if that girl suffered anymore tonight. If there had to be a sacrificial lamb, who better than the only one that had seen through his facade all of those years, and thus the one responsible for him. He'd fooled them all, but not him, and now he'd do whatever it took to be sure that the evil never escaped this room. A grim sense of understanding resignation fell over him and he grabbed the cord connecting the ether supply and yanked it free, further flooding the room with invisible yet highly flammable gas.

Dutifully he called for his patient, and then hissed for Laurie to get out of there, stalling for a few precious seconds to let her escape the makeshift alter he was about to fire up. The hissing seemed to grow even louder, almost as if he were prematurely surrounded by a host of demons anticipating their newest arrival soon to be sent their way in flames.

For a moment he contemplated whether he'd be headed that way too, for his role in not doing what had to be done the moment he'd realized the nature of evil. Yes, he'd done what society would likely have seen fit, done his best to keep the evil imprisoned and caged away, but the truth was there was only one way to ultimately conquer evil and he'd let the bounds of morality sway him from taking that step.

'We're all afraid of the dark inside ourselves...'

While he still believed that with every ounce of his being, he found it somewhat ironic that he'd failed to recognize and conquer his own fears for the past fifteen years. It had been his fear of the darkness within himself that had allowed him to tell himself he'd done all he could to keep the monster at bay, when he'd truly known all along that the evil had only been festering and growing within the walls of Smith's Grove for all those years simply waiting for the signal to manifest fully. Just as he'd seen just what his patient was all those years ago, a part of him also knew what had to be done, and it had been that fear of his own darkness that had stayed his hand.

So he'd done his duty, played his role as the evil's caretaker, protested any chance of release, lobbied hard for a transfer to a maximum security facility and done anything and everything that he felt did not impugn his sense of ethics and morality. The thoughts of nipping the evil in it's bud had always been there though, those twisted fantasies of an errant air bubble injected into an unsuspecting vein, of a pillow quietly pressed against a sleeping face, or an 'accidental' overdose blamed on incompetent staff, among others. For years those murderous thoughts had been lurking below the surface, repulsing and horrifying him. Evil didn't recognize what was right and moral though, and played by it's own rules and a part of him had always known that as well, no matter how much he'd suppressed and denied his thoughts over the years. How fitting it was that finally acknowledging his own inner darkness would be the final step in this ritual.

He couldn't help but smirk slightly at that, as he held the lighter aloft and spoke quietly.

"It's time, Michael..."

Then he struck the flint, hoping it was enough to finally appease the gods.

* * *

"In order to appease the gods, the Druid priests held fire rituals. Prisoners of war, criminals, the insane, animals... were... burned alive in baskets. By observing the way they died, the Druids believed they could see omens of the future. Two thousand years later, we've come no further. Samhain isn't evil spirits. It isn't goblins, ghosts or witches. It's the unconscious mind. We're all afraid of the dark inside ourselves." - Sam Loomis, Halloween II (1981)


End file.
